This business of eLearning.

Time is precious. Corporate eLearning that fails to advance the core business holds it back. The only metrics that matter are business metrics. This report addresses how an organization can apply networked learning to improve earnings and competitive advantage.

Internet Time Group is focused on learning that improves performance. Last year, we talked with more than a hundred corporations and eLearning vendor executives in person or on the phone. We asked them to imagine the CEO of a major organization just got in their elevator. She asks, "eLearning? What's in it for me?"

Most of our conversations lasted more than 30 minutes. Some conclusions follow.

• optimize the sales channel – speeding up sales force development,  rolling out new products faster, getting channel partners up to speed, learning to sell solutions instead of point products

• improve relationships with customers – helping customers learn to “pump their own gas” and showing them how to use products because “an educated customer is a better customer”

• transform the workforce – retooling for new business models, certifying large numbers of staff, making M&A work, keeping up with the times and changing corporate culture

Executives who cling to yesterday’s haphazard means of developing their people suffer from corporate dyslexia: they can’t read the handwriting on the wall. In the age of information, learning is the ultimate survival skill. Enthusiastic, knowledgeable people are the key to corporate success.

Learning is the essence of eLearning

eLearning is neither a technology nor the latest incarnation of computer-based training. Truth be told, eLearning is the buzzword, analogous to eBusiness, which inspired executives to contemplate learning as meaningful and exciting, a potentially worthwhile investment. The “e” is a marketing gimmick, a flashy way to say that technology is involved, but the learning part is valuable and real.

eLearning is learning on Internet time. Speed is important, because customers flock to the enterprise whose people are consistently first to deliver service that exceeds their expectations.

In his marvelous little book Break Away, Charles Fred writes that, “The most important, and vulnerable, connection between strategy and execution is the actual performance of people.” He notes that in today’s competitive environment, the true advantage is reducing “the time it takes to deliver on the promise made to the marketplace and to analysts, shareowners, and employees.”

eLearning is how large organizations keep pace with today’s incessant rate of change. If your value chain were the Internet, your people would be the infamous “last mile.”

Success feeds upon itself. Once more, Charles Fred: “A breakaway starts when you reach the proficiency threshold. Proficient workers become contributing team members; they produce innovative ideas; they work safely but quickly, they go on to achieve even greater levels of proficiency, and they win the race.”

Don’t expect miracles

As with any revolution, hucksters hitch a ride on the enthusiasm over real breakthroughs. Indeed, a primary mission of eLearningForum is running the snake oil out of the market. Let’s look at five things eLearning is not:

Not a cure-all. eLearning is not a shotgun remedy for corporate learning disabilities. It’s more effective for surgical strikes on specific business targets than for carpet-bombing the entire organization.

Not a substitute for instructors. Just as television did not wipe out movies, eLearning doesn’t necessarily replace instructors; it supplements them. Until computers can ad lib or read confusion in a learner’s face, people will continue to conduct the majority of corporate learning events.

Not simply training via computer. Old-style training followed an industrial model. Classrooms were assembly lines for pouring knowledge into workers’ heads. 48 hours later, people had forgotten most of what they’d learned because they hadn’t put it to use. While it flew under the radar unnoticed, the real learning took place on the job, more often delivered by the grapevine than by the corporate intranet. Ironically, most training departments focus on formal learning (in the classroom), while most corporate learning is actually informal (in the coffee room). eLearning improves upon the practical, job-focused learning.

Not a single technology. The best way to learn depends on the context—what’s to be learned, the outcomes sought, the individual learner, the value of the outcome, and urgency. Common wisdom holds that a blend of in-person events and web-delivery works better than either of them alone.

People learn by solving problems, by making mistakes and correcting them, by hearing stories, by engaging multiple senses and by following the call of their innate curiosity. The promise of eLearning is to facilitate these styles of learning.

Not generally cheaper than traditional learning. Savings of travel, facilities, and salaries are often balanced by costs of setting up learning infrastructure. EVA comes from top-line benefits such as more loyal customers, entry into new markets, greater reach, and shorter cycles.

Six months later.

My findings have held up remarkably well but these days I'm taking them further. It's not the learning that counts, it's the doing. Learning is but one of the means to an end. A one-liner at a conference crystallized this for me: "No one else calls them learners."

Call them knowledge workers. If we can help them improve performance through training or networking or on-job support or by giving them subscriptions to Martha Stewart Living, let's just do it. Learning is but one arrow in the performance improvement quiver. To achieve results, we should do whatever it takes.

Learning isn't separate from work. In a knowledge society, learning is the work.